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Owner of PageF30.com.
Translator of Demian by Hermann Hesse into English - an interlinear translation for German students and those who want to see the original text.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/mithradates
Fluent in Japanese, Korean. Proficient in Mandarin, Turkish, German, French, Portuguese, others.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Over at Auxlang I'm often writing about how one of the points that I really like about Ido is how similar it is to two languages I'm fluent in, Japanese and Korean. After learning Ido and going on to Turkish I also found those two to be quite similar as well. Here I'll try to show how a quick example of how Ido differs from English (and most Indo-European languages) in its precision, and how Japanese, Korean and Turkish generally have about this same level of precision.

English

Ido

Japanese

Korean

Turkish

real

reala

genjitsu (na)現実な

hyeonshiljeogin현실적인

gerçek

realist

realisto

genjitsushugisha現実主義者

hyeonshiljuuija현실주의자

gerçekçi

realism

realismo

genjitsushugi現実主義

hyeonshiljuui현실주의

gerçekçilik

to come true,be realized

realeskar

genjitsuka sareru現実化される

hyeonshilhwa dwaeda현실화 되다

gerçekleşmek

coming true(gerund)

realesko/realeskado

genjitsuka sareru koto現実化されること

hyeonshilhwadwaegi현실화 되기

gerçekleşme

realize,make real

realigar

genjitsuka saseru現実化させる

hyeonshilhwashikida현실화 시키다

gerçekleştirmek

realizing,making real(gerund)

realigo/realigado

genjistukasaseru koto現実化させること

hyeonshilhwashikigi현실화 시키기

gerçekleştirme

reality

realeso

genjitsu現実

hyeonshil현실

gerçeklik

really

reale

genjitsu ni現実に

hyeonshillo현실로

gerçekten

So you can see in most cases the languages match up in their derivation. Some notes:

Turkish -ism here is actually -ist (ci) plus -ness (lik), so realism is more like realistness.

The Ido -ar to -o change from a noun to the action of a verb is generally equivalent to removing the k from the end of a verb in Turkish, replacing the da with gi in Korean, and adding koto or slightly changing the end of the verb (like hanasu to hanashi) in Japanese.

All four languages have a clearer differentiation than English when it comes to transitive and intransitive verbs. After putting suffixes on the end of verbs you can again change them into gerunds in the same way as above (they don't all function like in Ido where there are no exceptions, so don't try to just make up words in Japanese or Korean willy-nilly using this method for example, it'll sound weird).

The -n case in Ido is also equivalent to the Turkish -i, Japanese wo, and Korean reul, which is nice. This makes it really easy to explain how it works to people from these countries and lets them achieve a bit freer word order than with something like Novial.

There's a lot more to this but I'll leave it at that for the first post. Note that I'm not saying that the four languages are anywhere close to the same, just that:

Ido has features that make it more appealing to and easier to explain to people from these countries, and

Ido's having the level of precision it has is not unnaturally logical. The general consensus against Ido by its detractors (the majority of which do not know anything about the grammar of Japanese/Korean/Turkish and related languages) is that it is unnaturally logical, the brainchild of a mathematician, and too robotically precise. The fact is that languages like English are often so vague ("Eye drops off shelf", "Enraged cow injures farmer with axe", "Squad helps dog bite victim") that this has become the norm we use to compare IALs. It's good to take a good look outside the English bubble every once in a while when looking at the features of an IAL.